The department said the Public Utilities Commission should reconsider the certificate of need it granted the project, arguing that Enbridge failed to submit a long-range forecast for demand for the oil that the pipeline carries, according to a filing that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison submitted on behalf of the department on Thursday.

The pushback from the state could present further challenges to a project that already has faced delays amid opposition from environmentalists and indigenous groups. The Line 3 expansion is a key project for Canadian oil producers, who have suffered from a lack of pipeline capacity that has weighed on local crude prices and restrained their ability to boost production.

Enbridge’s failure to submit a long-range oil demand forecast is a “material legal error” that can’t be fixed with other evidence in the record, Ellison said in the request. The utilities commission compounded the error by shifting the burden to other parties to show that demand would decrease, Ellison said in the request.

Enbridge, based in Calgary, said the petitions for reconsideration were “an expected next step” in the regulatory process, and they raise issues that the commission has previously considered and rejected.

The regulators and an administrative law judge have both agreed that projections show the extra capacity on Line 3 will be needed for years to come, Enbridge said.

“Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project is the most studied pipeline in Minnesota’s history,” the company said in a statement. “It has already undergone an extensive contested case hearing process lasting nearly five years.”

Other groups, including the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Honor the Earth, the Sierra Club and youth climate activists, also asked the commission to reconsider the certificate of need.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Kevin Orland in Calgary at korland@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net
Carlos Caminada, Catherine Traywick

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